Speedtest.net very different on my MBP vs my iPhone

[DirtySocks85]

So I was just doing some bandwidth speed tests on my home internet connection for the hell of it (well, it started as a bit of quick trouble shooting and then turned into "for the hell of it"), and I noticed something quite odd. I did tests using both my MacBook Pro going to the SpeedTest.net in Firefox and on my iPhone using the SpeedTest.net app.

Here are my results (in the order I did the tests):

MacBook Pro:
downstream: 13.58 Mb/s
upstream: 1.10 Mb/s
latency: 105 ms

then the next test on the iPhone (less than one minute later):
downstream: 8.77 Mb/s
upstream: 3.63 Mb/s
latency: 154 ms

and then back to the MacBook:
downstream: 14.39 Mb/s
upstream: 1.10 Mb/s
latency: 98 ms

and on the iPhone again:
downstream: 5.72 Mb/s
upstream: 3.43 Mb/s
latency: 139


That seems like quite an odd discrepancy there. The incoming bandwidth appears much better on the MacBook, and equally (if not more surprising) is that the upstream is better on the iPhone tests. Anyone know a reason why this could be the case (such as the iPhone's wifi hardware being inferior)?

Either way, I think that I'll think twice before using my iPhone as a diagnostic tool on my network status if I'm trying to be close to accurate.

 

[bowlerman625]

I use the FCC broadband speed test on my iphone 4 and iPad. The speed results are pretty consistent to when I do the test on speediest.net with my MacBook Air using firefox or safari.

 

[iPhone1]

MBP uses both frequencies of 802.11n where the iPhone 4 only uses the lower frequency of 802.11n.

 

[DirtySocks85]

MBP uses both frequencies of 802.11n where the iPhone 4 only uses the lower frequency of 802.11n.

That would explain it... if I had an 802.11n router, but I'm running an old 802.11g Linksys WRT54G (probably should have mentioned that in the original post). So does that still apply to this case?

 

[tibere86]

My findings...
Have 25MB Comcast connection.

- Put my router in B/G mode
Laptop -> 6MB
iPhone -> 14MB
(Same test server)

- Put my router in N mode
Laptop -> 20MB
iPhone -> 7MB
(Same test sever)

Anyone else notice better b/g wifi performance on iPhone?